This Hebrew Pentateuch with Haftarot (portions from the Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible, read in synagogue on Sabbaths and holidays following the Torah portion) added at the end was created in Sana'a, Yemen, in 1485. The manuscript includes full vocalization, accentuation, and Masorah annotation. The Haftarot include the Targum, or Aramaic translation, following each verse. Preceding the Torah text itself are two grammatical treatises (comprising 15 leaves in total) common in Yemen. The manuscript is written on paper in Yemenite square script, in two columns per page, with ...

This 1952 map by the Army Map Service of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers provides a broad overview of the Near East, the geographic region traditionally thought of as encompassing the countries of southwest Asia, including Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Israel, and Jordan, and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. In addition to political borders, the map shows lakes, rivers, and other bodies of water, marshlands, cities by population, pipelines, railroads, and pumping stations. Above the key is a glossary of topographic terms with transliterations and translations into ...

Samuel Augustus Mitchell (1792–1868) was a renowned American geographer and cartographer. The majority of his work focused on the United States, but he also made maps of other parts of the world, including this 1868 map of the Ottoman Empire, Persia (present-day Iran), Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. The main territorial units that Mitchell shows are Turkey, meaning the core of the Ottoman Empire comprised of present-day Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon; Persia; Afghanistan; and Baluchistan (mainly present-day Pakistan). Egypt and much of the Arabian Peninsula were at that time technically ...

This map appeared in A New Universal Atlas, published in 1846 by Henry Schenck Tanner, an early American geographer and cartographer. This map shows the political and geographic features of the Arabian Peninsula, using the traditional divisions of Arabia Petraea, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Felix. Also shown are the region of the Hedjaz with the cities of Mecca and Medina, and Al-Dahna (present-day Kuwait and southern Iraq). The key in the bottom right differentiates between capitals, important towns, and smaller towns by means of starred and shaded circles. The boundaries ...

This German-language military map, published some time in the late-19th century, depicts Egypt, Palestine, and the Arabian Peninsula. It also includes parts of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (present-day Sudan), Ethiopia, and Eritrea. Railroads, caravan routes, telegraph lines, pyramids, fortifications, and ruins are indicated by symbols shown in the key at the lower left. The German equivalents of some Arabic topographic terms are given. An inset map in the upper right shows the Nile Delta and the Sinai Peninsula. Relief is shown by shading, and the heights of important mountains and passes are ...

This map by Thomas Gamaliel Bradford (1802–87), depicting parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, appeared in Bradford’s A Comprehensive Atlas: Geographical, Historical & Commercial, which was published in Boston in 1835. Bradford was born in Boston of a distinguished New England family. He made maps of both U.S. states and foreign countries and became the assistant editor of the Encyclopedia Americana, the first significant encyclopedia produced in the United States. The map uses colored lines to delineate the boundaries of the Persian Empire, Afghanistan, Arabia, and ...

This map of Southwest Asia dating from about 1866 shows the possessions of the European powers in this region. The map extends from Libya, Egypt, and Sudan in the west to Mongolia, China (Tibet), and Burma in the east. Colored lines are used to indicate territories controlled by Britain, France, Portugal, and the Ottoman Empire and to delineate what the map calls the kingdom of the imam of Oman. The names of provincial capitals are underlined. British territories in India are divided into six parts: Bengal, the Northwest Provinces, Panjab ...

This map of the Middle East, originally published in August 1950 and revised in February 1955, was issued by the Aeronautical Chart and Information Center, Air Photographic and Charting Service, Military Air Transportation Service (MATS), of the United States Air Force. In addition to Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, it shows the eastern parts of Egypt and the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium of Sudan as well as parts of Eritrea and Ethiopia. Many borders on the map, particularly on the Arabian Peninsula, are shown as still undetermined. Territories shown ...

This map, published in Paris in 1842, shows the Asian provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Persia (present-day Iran), Afghanistan, and the Arabian Peninsula. The map appeared in Atlas universel de géographie ancienne et moderne (Universal atlas of ancient and modern geography) by the cartographer and engraver Pierre M. Lapie (1779–1850). Lapie was a member of the corps of topographical engineers in the French army, where he rose to the rank of colonel. He eventually became head of the topographical section in the Ministry of War. He was assisted by ...

This map of the Middle East and Central and South Asia extending from the Nile Valley to the boundary of Afghanistan with British India is from Johnson’s New Illustrated Family Atlas, published in New York in 1864. The map shows national capitals, provincial capitals, principal towns, and railroads. The Suez Canal, under construction at this time, is shown as proposed. The map provides a detailed overview of the towns and cities along the Nile in Egypt, Nubia (present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan), and Sennar (present-day Sudan), and of ...

This 1852 map from the New Universal Atlas by the Philadelphia publisher Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co. shows the Arabian Peninsula, the kingdom of Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. The provinces of Persia, including Irakadjemi, Fars, Khorasan, and Kerman, are shown by different colors. The Arabian Peninsula is divided into the traditional divisions used by European geographers, Arabia Petrea, Arabia Felix, and Arabia Deserta. Yemen and Oman are shown, along with the locations of important towns, mountains, ruins, and wells and sources of fresh water in the Arabian Desert. Afghanistan includes the northern ...

This map of Persia (present-day Iran), the Arabian Peninsula, and neighboring countries originally appeared in the 1865 edition of Colton’s General Atlas. It extends from a part of Egypt (the Nile Delta) in the west to Afghanistan in the east and reflects the general level of geographic knowledge of the Middle East in mid-19th century America. Coloring is used to indicate borders and certain provinces or settled areas. The map shows cities, mountains, and roads, and includes some notes on topographical features. J.H. Colton & Company was founded in ...

This 1885 map shows the region between Constantinople, capital of the Ottoman Empire, and British India, an area of intense imperial rivalry between the British and Russian Empires in the late-19th century. British possessions are colored in red and include British India, Cyprus, the Aden Protectorate (present-day Yemen), Socotra Island (Yemen), and the northern littoral of the Horn of Africa, which became the protectorate of British Somaliland (present-day Somalia) in 1888. The map shows railroad lines and submarine telegraph cables. The railroad network is at this time more developed in ...

Travels in Arabia provides an overview, intended for a general audience, of the most important European travelers to Arabia in the 18th and 19th centuries. The book was compiled and written by Bayard Taylor (1825–78), an American poet, translator, and travel writer, and first published in 1872. Shown here is a slightly revised and updated edition, published in 1892. Following brief introductory chapters about the geography of Arabia and ancient travelers to Arabia, the book devotes one or more chapters to the following explorers: Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815), a ...

Biographic Sketch of Mohammad Ali (1769–1849), composed by an unknown author, was published in Washington in 1837. Muḥammad ʻAlī was pasha and wali(governor) of Egypt within the Ottoman Empire from 1805 until his death. The book begins by comparing him to Napoleon, noting that they shared the same birth year and the same “insatiate ambition.” The author describes Muḥammad ʻAlī’s military service under the Ottoman governor of Kavalla in Rumelia (northeastern Greece). Muḥammad ʻAlī also became a tobacco dealer during this period, an experience that probably inspired ...

Josiah Conder (1789–1855) was a British publisher and author who wrote or compiled 33 volumes of travel literature about nearly every region of the world, including the Middle East. Conder himself never traveled abroad and composed his works by drawing upon the writings of earlier scholars and explorers. As indicated in the subtitle, Conder organized his book on Arabia into sections. He begins by describing the topography of the different regions of Arabia and such climatic phenomena as the semoum (poison) winds that blow across the Syrian Desert in ...

Life in the Desert, or, Recollections of Travel in Asia and Africa is an English translation of a work originally published in 1860 in France under the title Les Mystères du Désert. The author, Louis Du Couret (1812–67), was the son of a colonel in the French army. He traveled to the Middle East in 1836, where he served as a military officer under Muḥammad ʻAlī (1769–1849), pasha and wali (governor) of Egypt, and fought in the Battle of Nezib in Syria in 1839. He converted to Islam ...

David George Hogarth (1862–1927) was a British archaeologist and scholar who between 1887 and 1907 worked on excavations in Cyprus, Greece, and several countries of the Middle East. In 1904 he published The Penetration of Arabia, a work which, as the subtitle indicates, was an attempt to chronicle the growth of Western knowledge about the Arabian Peninsula, rather than a first-hand account based on travel to the region. The book has two sections. “The Pioneers” analyzes the historical geography of the region from the time of Claudius Ptolemy (second ...

William Gifford Palgrave (1826–88) was a famous English traveler to Arabia who inspired a generation of European explorers and missionaries. He became fluent in Arabic while serving as a Jesuit missionary in Syria. In 1862 he undertook a year-long journey through the Arabian Peninsula with the stated aim of studying the “moral, political, and intellectual conditions of living Arabia.” He was also working as a secret agent for the French emperor, Napoleon III (1808–73). Palgrave disguised himself as a Syrian doctor and was accompanied by his assistant, Barakāt ...

In preparation for the peace conference that was expected to follow World War I, in the spring of 1917 the British Foreign Office established a special section responsible for preparing background information for use by British delegates to the conference. Arabiais Number 61 in a series of more than 160 studies produced by the section, most of which were published after the conclusion of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Chapter I discusses physical and political geography. Chapter II covers the political history of the 12 autonomous states, which at ...

In preparation for the peace conference that was expected to follow World War I, in the spring of 1917 the British Foreign Office established a special section responsible for preparing background information for use by British delegates to the conference. Persian Gulfis Number 76 in the series of more than 160 studies produced by the section, most of which were published after the conclusion of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Chapter I discusses physical and political geography, dividing the littoral of the Gulf (also known as the Arabian Gulf ...

In preparation for the peace conference that was expected to follow World War I, in the spring of 1917 the British Foreign Office established a special section responsible for preparing background information for use by British delegates to the conference. British Somaliland and Sokotra is Number 97 in a series of more than 160 studies produced by the section, most of which were published after the conclusion of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. British Somaliland (the northwest part of present-day Somalia) was a British protectorate, established in 1884−7, after ...

This mid-19th-century British map shows the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring parts of Africa, including Egypt, the Sudan, and Abyssinia. The traditional Greek and Roman division of Arabia into the three parts of Arabia Petraea, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Felix is used. Qatar is shown as Catura. Also indicated are Oman, Bahrain, and the territories of Mecca and Medina. The map emphasizes the vast, empty interior of the peninsula with such annotations as “great space covered with sand” and “deserts very barren and continued between Mekka and Oman.” Four different caravan ...

This map of the Arabian Peninsula shows international borders, caravan routes, and important cities and towns. British possessions, including the port of Aden and the island of Socotra (ʻAdan and Suquṭrā, both part of present-day Yemen), are indicated by the pink coloring. The old Qatari cities of El Bedaa and Zabara (present-day Al Bida and Al Zabara) are shown. The map appeared as plate 48 in The Imperial Atlas of Modern Geography, published by the Glasgow firm of Blackie & Son in 1859 and reissued in 1860. Founded in 1809 by ...

John Cary (circa 1754−1835) was a leading London engraver, map-, chart- and print-seller, and globe maker, active between 1787 and 1834. This map of 1804 shows the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring parts of Africa and the Middle East. Important caravan routes are marked, including the “route of the grand caravan of Sudan from the Niger to Cairo,” “route of the caravan from Batsora [Basra] to Aleppo,” “caravan of Darfowar [Darfur] to Mecca by Dongola,” “caravan of Sudan directly to Mecca by Suakem,” and several other caravan routes to Mecca ...

This map showing the Arabian Peninsula, Persia (present-day Iran), Afghanistan, and Baluchistan (present-day Iran and Pakistan) was published in 1855 by the G.W. and C.B. Colton and Company of New York. Coloring is used to indicate borders and certain provinces or settled areas. The map shows cities, mountains, and roads, and includes some notes on topographical features. The old Qatari city of Al Zabara is shown. The map is accompanied by a one-page summary of the geography, people, principal places, and recent history of Afghanistan and Baluchistan. The ...

German geographer and cartographer Heinrich Kiepert (1818–99) is generally regarded as one of the most important scholarly cartographers of the second half of the 19th century. He was head of the Geographical Institute in Weimar between 1845 and 1852 and professor at the University of Berlin from 1852 until his death. Shown here is Kiepert’s 1852 map of Arabia. As indicated in the title, it is based on “C. Ritter’s geography book.” The latter refers to Die Erdkunde im Verhältnis zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen ...

John Tallis and Company was a British mapmaking and publishing firm, founded by John Tallis (1817–76), which was active in London circa 1835−60. Tallis maps were known for their accurate information with numerous place-names and geographical details, as well as for the use of shaded areas to indicate topographical features. They are identifiable by the scrolling on the borders and the finely-drawn scenes inscribed on the margins of the maps, which John Tallis and his illustrators derived from travelogues and other written sources. John Rapkin (1815−76) was ...

This map of Arabia, published in London in 1794, is an English translation of a map by the French cartographer and geographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (1697−1782). Appointed the first geographer to the king of France in 1773, d’Anville was one of the most important mapmakers of the 18th century, known for the accuracy and scientific quality of his maps. The work presented here is said to contain “Additions and Improvements from Mr. Niebuhr,” a reference to Carsten Niebuhr (1733–1815), a German-born Danish explorer and civil engineer ...

This map of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula is from the sixth edition (1875) of Stieler's Hand-Atlas über alle Theile der Erde (Stieler’s portable atlas of all parts of the Earth), edited by August Heinrich Petermann (1822−78) and published by the firm of Justus Perthes. The map reflects the high quality of German cartography in the latter part of the 19th century and the advances made by German mapmakers in incorporating into their work findings from geology, hydrography, ethnography, and other scientific fields. The map uses ...

“Arabia According to Its Modern Divisions” shows the Arabian Peninsula with the three-part division traditionally used in European sources into Arabia Petraea, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Felix. Deserts, seaports, and the pearl beds along the coast are indicated. Qatar is shown as Catura. Four different distance scales—Arabian miles, Turkish miles, Persian parasangs, and British miles—are provided. Published in 1794, the map was compiled and drawn by Samuel Dunn (circa 1723−94), a teacher of mathematics and navigation who made original contributions to solving the problem of determining longitude ...

This color map in German appeared as plate 80 in Grosser Hand-Atlas über alle Theile der Erde (Large portable atlas of all parts of the world), published by the Bibliographic Institute of Joseph Meyer (1796−1856). The map shows the Arabian Peninsula as well as neighboring parts of Africa, including Egypt, present-day Sudan, and Abyssinia (present-day Ethiopia). Colored lines are used to demarcate kingdoms and other political entities. El Bedaa, an old city in Qatar (now the Al Bida area of Doha), is shown. Three inset maps in the upper ...

This map of the Arabian Peninsula appeared in the 1856 edition of the world atlas that was first published by James Wyld (1790−1836) in 1824 and in successive editions by his son, James Wyld the younger (1812−87). Political divisions are indicated by colored lines and the scale is in English miles. Cities, towns, wells, and caravan routes to Mecca are shown. An annotation on the map reflects the limited state of European knowledge about geography of parts of the peninsula: “The interior of Arabia is probably a high ...

This map of the coastlines of the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent regions is by the French hydrographer and cartographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703−72). Bellin was attached to the French Marine Office for more than 50 years and specialized in producing maritime maps. He also made most of the maps for Histoire générale des voyages: ou, Nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre, qui ont été publiées jusqu'à présent dans les différentes langues de toutes les nations connues (General history of the voyages, or ...

This 1898 printing of a 15th-century work by a Yemeni author, Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abū Bakr al-Azraq, or al-Azraqī, is a book of remedies dealing with medicinal uses of seeds, grains, and other foods and their nutritional value. The material is based in part on two earlier works: Shifā’ al-ajsām (The curing of bodies) by Muḥammad ibn Abū al-Ghayth al-Kamarānī, and Kitāb al-raḥmah (The book of mercy) by Ṣubunrī. Included in the margins is yet another work, Kitāb al-ṭibb al-nabawī (The book of Prophetic medicine) by the celebrated ...

Al-Tuḥfat al-Nabhānīya fī tārīkh al-jazīra al-ʻArabīya (The Nabhani offering on the history of the Arabian Peninsula) is by Muḥammad ibn Kahlīfa ibn Ḥamd ibn Mūsā al-Nabhānī (1883 or 1884−1950 or 1951). The author was a teacher at the Masjid al-Ḥarām in Mecca (as was his father). The younger al-Nabhani started this work after his visit to Bahrain, and a request that he write a book treating the history of the current rulers of Bahrain, as well of its ancient emirs and their dealings with friend and foe ...

Shown here is a large folding map produced by the General Staff of the German Army during World War II. Notes on the map indicate that it was solely for use within the army and that reproduction was prohibited. One side is a large map of the region stretching from the Balkan Peninsula to the eastern part of Iran. Shown are towns and cities by population size, international borders, the borders of republics and provinces within the Soviet Union, major and secondary roads, roads under construction, oil pipelines, mountain passes ...

This map was prepared for the Middle East Region Air Navigation Meeting of the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO), which took place in Cairo, Egypt, in October 1946. It shows political borders and recommended facilities for search and rescue, including rescue-coordinating and rescue-alerting centers, bases for different types of search-and-rescue aircraft, and facilities for surface vessels. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was established under a convention signed by 52 countries at the November 1944 International Civil Aviation Conference in Chicago. From August 1945 to August 1947, as the ...

This map of airline routes in the Eastern Mediterranean and adjacent areas was compiled and drawn by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for the Department of State, based on information supplied by the Foreign Air Transport Division of the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board. It presumably was for use by diplomats at the newly established International Civil Aviation Organization. Some of the airlines whose routes are shown exist to the present day; others have merged, gone bankrupt, or changed their names. Athens, Cairo, Lydda (Lod in present-day Israel; until ...

This map, produced in 1946 by the Survey of Egypt, shows a scheme for air traffic control in the Middle East. The International Convention on Civil Aviation, adopted by 52 countries in 1944, provided for the establishment of an international air-traffic control system aimed at preventing aircraft collisions. The world’s airspace was to be divided into contiguous regions, within each of which all traffic would be controlled by a designated air-traffic control authority. On longer flights, aircraft are passed by radio from the control of one region to another ...

This map, produced in 1943 by the Geographic Service of the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office) of Germany, shows the ethnic, linguistic, and religious makeup of the Middle East. Included are the Caucasus and other parts of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and parts of present-day Pakistan and India. The map and the explanatory text reflect the Nazi-era obsession with race and ethnicity. The long note at the top of the key states that the map "endeavors to show the Lebensraum [living space] of those oriental peoples located in Europe’s area ...

This map of the Middle East was made by the Führungsstab der Luftwaffe (the operations staff of the German air force) in 1943. The map is labeled “Secret.” Covering the region from the eastern Mediterranean to the border of Afghanistan with British India (present-day Pakistan), it shows the locations of first- and second-class air bases, operational bases, landing strips, and airfields under construction, as of March 15, 1943. Six inset maps—of Aden, Mosul, Cyprus, Baghdad, Gaza-Haifa, and Damascus-Aleppo—provide additional detail about locations with more well-developed aviation infrastructure. Railroad ...